India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is traveling to Europe again. Russia was the first country he visited shortly after he had started his third term as India's prime minister. His second Europe tour since then led him to Poland and Ukraine. He was India's first head of government to have visited Poland in 45 years and Ukraine in almost 40 years. Only this fact was enough to make his visits to Poland and Ukraine historic for both India itself and its relationships with Poland and Ukraine. 

Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi inspect honorable guards at Warsaw on August 22. Photo: AFP/VNA

All improvements in relationships between India, Poland, and Ukraine that were generated from his recent Europa tour are visible. But Europe and the world paid more attention to the possible implications of Modi's visits to Poland and Ukraine on India's foreign policies, its role and influences in world politics, and in the Ukraine war as well as in the worldwide power game between the so-called Global North and Global South. It reflected Modi's pragmatic and interest-oriented foreign policy.

In the Ukraine war and confrontations between the West and Russia, Modi's India remains as like as neutral. But India is a very important partner for both Russia and the West. India has a traditionally good relationship with Russia and a complicated and troubled relationship with China. The West is trying hard to get India to be at its side and join them against Russia and China, to distance India from Russia, and to persuade India to support Ukraine. In this context, Russia and China have long-term and strategic interests in maintaining good relationships with India and preventing India from shifting towards the West. Therefore, India has many strong trumps in its global game for world-politic roles and influences.

And Modi brings them into full play in Europe with his very pragmatic approach. He pays his attention to keeping India in its flexible balance between Russia and China on the one side and the West together with Ukraine on the other side. This constellation is helping India always stay in the state that all related partners are always trying their best to have India as one of their strategic allies. The more the West, including Poland, is determined to have Russia defeated in the Ukraine war, the more important India will become to them. It is just, for example, why Ukraine strongly condemned Modi's visit to Russia and his talks with Russia's president Vladimir Putin recently in Russia but was then very happy with Modi's visit to Poland and Ukraine.

Modi's pragmatic approach revealed itself in his efforts to present India as a peace maker in the Ukraine war, thus gaining growing respect and trust from member countries of the Global South.  This would help Modi's India successfully establish its leading role in this block. But Modi's pragmatism in Europe couldn't hide the fact that Russia is still strategically a little bit more important for India than Ukraine, Poland and Europe as whole.

Disclaimer: The views expressed by Ambassador Tran Duc Mau are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Hanoi Times.